


The Art of War in Motion

by handsomeprincess



Category: Fire Emblem: Kakusei | Fire Emblem: Awakening
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-18
Updated: 2017-10-18
Packaged: 2019-01-19 00:04:39
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 10,573
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12399000
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/handsomeprincess/pseuds/handsomeprincess
Summary: A routine check-in from the army's tactician turns into an impromptu dance lesson. Originally written in 2015.





	The Art of War in Motion

**Author's Note:**

> The dance performed in this fic inspired by this video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=23LiFjSMWqg

“How long have you been dancing?”

 

This is what he had chosen to ask while he was waiting in the doorway for an excuse not to leave. He had done the cursory check-in with her, following in step with the four other of their friends who had dutifully stopped by and thought of careful new ways to ask her if she was feeling all right. Had she eaten anything? Yes, Cherche had kindly brought her something and she’d finished it all. Had she gotten rest? Of course, and plenty. 

 

That was where the crowd of people wearing smiles on too tight had started to diverge. Did she want to come out by the fire, one asked? Did she want to come help make dessert? Would she like a walk, or to talk, or do anything anyone could think of without directly addressing her sudden desire for solitude? She smiled back and declined each offer. The creativity in the camp ran so suddenly rampant, but the tactician seemed to be managing to be the most creative of all. 

“I’m sorry?” Olivia looked up at him from her cot when he lingered behind, keeping one foot still in the tent so he could at least say he hadn’t walked out on her. He shrugged and looked a little smaller under that massive coat when he did so – when he wilted, he didn’t quite go as far as she did, but it was notable to one who knew how to recognize such things. 

“I was wondering how long you’ve been dancing. That’s all.”

It did not escape her that he wasn’t smiling, and that pleasantness without a smile was much harder to fake. It also did not escape her that this was not something she could answer with a simple no, but thank you. She couldn’t tell whether she liked to think of him as lucky or as clever. 

The dancer blinked a few times. “Well, I’ve been breathing since I’ve been born.” 

When Solen frowned, she blushed back at him. “By that,” she added hastily, “I mean that dancing is a little like breathing. For me, anyway. So when I think about how long I’ve been dancing, it’s like thinking about how long I’ve been breathing. Forever, really.” 

He didn’t say anything in the second after she spoke and she jumped back in. “I started taking lessons when I was five.”  

Solen raised an eyebrow. “I think I liked your first answer more.” 

“Oh, I’m sorry.” 

“Don’t be!” The man wilted even more and she couldn’t tell why. “I was just

curious. You’re so good at it that I really wasn’t sure if that was just what hard work looked like, or if you came dancing out of the womb or something.”

“A bit of both! But I’m not as good as you think, I’m afraid.” Olivia sat up a little more and made herself look at him even as her face started to heat up. Her consolation was that he was pinking too, although noticing that made her feel warmer, and when she went warmer he went even pinker. She covered her face a little, for fear that both of them would turn so red that they would start to resemble broiled lobsters and cook themselves from the inside with embarrassment.

“Well, I don’t know much about these things.” Solen admitted. 

She perked up. “You know so much! You learn really fast. Those blueprints you drew up were really detailed, and they had so many perfect things in them! I think you know more about all this performing business than you think you do.”

He mused on this. “I suppose maybe I do. If I know so much, then, then I must I’m right when I say you’re rather good.”

He looked at her so earnestly as she shrunk back down. She watched him wait for her to decide if her self-loathing would lose out to her desire not to insult him. Defeated, she tightened her lips and shifted on the cot. Forcing him to criticize her dancing would have felt particularly cruel, anyway.

“You can come in.” She offered, instead. The part of him that was out in the wind was starting to go from red to pale, and he nimbly stepped himself inside and fastned up the tent as if he were fearful the cold would give chase. Olivia was not particularly sure if he was actually interested in the conversation or if he had just connived a way to get inside so he could now really start questioning her. She remained quiet as he stood by the exit and looked down at her, rubbing his hands in his pockets to warm them like he thought she wouldn’t notice. 

“So,” Solen said, finally, tugging at his hair like a nervous schoolboy – still, he did not suggest leaving just as quickly as he had come in. “As long as you’ve been breathing, you were saying?”

“Not to say I haven’t worked hard, either! I’ve always had an impulse to have to dance. The practice is what makes me dance well – I practice every day - but the fact I’m dancing at all comes from me.”

“You always look as if you’ve just started dancing like it’s nothing. I never have any idea where you get these moves from.”

“Yes, that’s what practice makes you look like.” She grinned at him, and grinned more when he took another step towards her. “The dancing that looks the most raw is very polished. You only think you look like that when you’re really dancing at random without much experience.” Olivia giggled a little, in spite of herself. “Oh! When I was really little, I used to put on silly shows for my family. I would sing to them and dance around and everything. I probably looked foolish. But my grandmother would clap for me! And my father, sometimes. And one of my brothers, always.”  
“That’s adorable.” The man shook his head and slowly went for a cot across from her, eyeing her for approval before he sat. She nodded at him and gestured him down, imagining Cherche would forgive them both. 

“It was sweet of them.”

“I suppose they’re proud enough to applaud for real now when they see you.” He leaned into her and frowned when she stopped smiling “No? But they’re soldiers, aren’t they? I know military dancing isn’t so widespread around Ylisse but surely in Feroxi…”

“Oh, I’m sure they respected any dancers in their army as much as they were able. They would just rather have seen me actually reaching for my sword.” Her frown only lasted for a moment until she saw exactly how concerned she had made him. “But they weren’t so bad. And Basilio thinks I’m good enough, and that’s what matters.”  

“As he should.” Solen nodded at her when she spoke of the khan, and she hoped she had reassured him enough by the fond look on her face when she mentioned him. “I’m glad he introduced us. I would have never thought to look for a dancer.”

Olivia studied the tips of her knees. “Most people don’t. But that’s the kind of dancing I’ve been doing the longest. I know a lot of kinds, but they all come later after all the traditional Feroxi. Everything else is particularly about entertaining, or at least keeping yourself very fit and exercised! And I love that too. There are some dances that are really about how beautiful you can be, and there are some that are about how precise you can be. But they’re very nice to sit and watch and that’s why you do them on a stage, or on a private floor, and your audience is usually in nice chairs and dressed up in something pretty.”

“Like the opening premiere routine you showed me! So those are the kinds you would do for everyone in our theatre.” 

The way he spoke of such a private dream as if he owned it too sent a strange shiver down her back, and she closed her knees together and crossed her arms – perhaps, if she kept her limbs tight enough and her secrets down enough, he wouldn’t be so compulsed to pretend as if he shared these parts of her. 

“There must be something I’m keeping you from.” 

The tactician sat up and looked around as if he just realized how closely he had been leaning in. “Um. No. Nothing.”

“Really?” She imagined herself coming off as pensive. “No meetings? Maybe you have something you could be reading, at least. Do you have anything to plan out for tomorrow?” 

He grabbed at his hair again, but he shook his head and looked at her with the kind of gleam in his eye she doubted he even knew he was giving her. 

“We had a successful fight today, so we’re not rushing to scheme with all the time we’ve just bought. Plus, I already did all that.”

“You always like to be alone in the evenings. I don’t want to make you have to keep me company!” 

He smiled and it looked loose and natural and kind on him, as if he hadn’t intended to wear it for anyone and she had caught him with it the same way she might catch him naked.  “I’m all yours.”

Olivia stared at him and, without entirely meaning to, she unfolded her arms and spread her knees a little bit further. 

“Then I would do those, yes. The one I showed you was very traditional for the stage, since I think it would be the most fitting to give people what they’re coming for first. But I can perform the Feroxi dances too! They’re very versatile.”

She stood up and reached her arm up above her head and instantly, she felt all of her muscles in her upper body stand at eager attention. As she indulged in the stretch, she watched Solen look the long way up her body to get to her eyes and couldn’t decide whether to become flustered or flattered. The dancer settled for both and beamed at him while recoiling back into a much less visceral stance. 

“That kind of dance is about being precise and being beautiful too, but it’s actually about energy. That’s why it works so well with armies. It’s all a series of steps, really.” Olivia thought for a moment, stretched her neck one way and then the other, and did a simple twirl and step at the end. 

“So you break it down move by move, not just by full routine.”

“Right! And then you think of another one that’s easy to go into.” She did the twirl again, then held her ground strong and whirled both her arms to create a large, even circle around her head. “Maybe start with that kind of step. Something with a nice flow to it to ease in the energy, then something more powerful, and then perhaps I’d do something even stronger in the transition.” 

“So you chain them.” He said, putting his chin on his hand as he watched her and tugged absentmindedly on his lower lip. 

“Oh! Something like that, I guess!” She shrugged and giggled a little. “I wouldn’t know. I don’t think all strategically like you do. I just feel things out, and they suddenly make sense to me.” The dancer nodded at him and twirled again, circled again, and pounded her whole body into a motion that felt like she was banging a line of drums all the way down the floor. She had long since learned that when she did this move, she could practically hear the almighty sound of her drumming – when she swung down and came up, her movements filled her up so hard and heavily that she could believe that even she, with her spindling limbs and miniature stature, could not be knocked down by either men or gods. 

Of course, she could not remain so weighted that she could not move, and she turned on her heel and spun out to dispel some of the excess. “With each step you generate more and more spirit and power that can spur someone on a little bit further than they could have otherwise.” One last time, she did every step, filling her muscles as heartily she could manage – at the very end, Olivia let herself go into a careful bow towards her lone audience member and gestured out and wide with her forearms and wrists. “Then, you let all of it go into someone who needs it more and I love that the most, when they feel it soak it into them.” 

Solen looked up at her as if he were drinking something in, and all at once, his shoulders relaxed and he sat up straighter. 

“Feel good?” She asked, and he nodded. 

“It always does.”

She beamed. “That’s what’s really wonderful about Feroxi dancing, if you do it in the traditional way. You can do it without the benefits, if you wanted, and it’s less strain. But the steps are so closely associated with healing magic so I can help everyone too, even if I can’t wield a stave to save my life or anyone else’s. Our families wouldn’t bother to train us in it if it wasn’t practical, after all.”

Olivia sat down again and took in a breath as she watched the tactician shyly bask in the transfer, and she resolved that she would keep the dark sags under his eyes off his face more often.

“This kind of energy feels like adrenaline, but it’s not so taxing. No one expects it – they think they just have to watch me and become inspired all on their own, which they can’t really do if someone’s coming after them with an axe. I like to be watched when I can, don’t get me wrong, even if it’s so embarrassing. That’s why I liked the theatre. But when a soldier feels what I just did for them, they look so happy, and then I’m happy, and suddenly war doesn’t look quite so bleak.”

The more impressed Solen looked, the more she looked away, fumbling with her word choice. “It’s nice to not have so many eyes on me all the time though! But it’s not so good when someone comes after  _ me _ with an axe, because then I have to fight and I’m not strong. But it’s what I can do for you and everyone else. And it gives me a wage at all these days! So I practice very hard, and I’ll practice even more if you think I need to!”

“I think you’re incredible.” He cut in, and when he spoke, he spoke so soberly she was nearly convinced he wasn’t being honeyed. “I really do. I wish I could just stand there and watch you, but you’re still incredible. Decent swordsmen are everywhere. I’d rather have a whole squadron of dancers like you.”

She pinked. “You talk like I’m particularly special just for practicing. I think anyone can do it if they try hard enough.”

“Definitely not me. I promise.”

“Why not you?” Olivia tried to match his earnestness from before when she posed the question, even as if he stared back at her as if he were baffled she was really missing what seemed so obvious. “Well, really, why not? You can fight, so you’re in good shape. You cast magic so you have a sense of rhythm. And you have a good sense of other people and what they need from you.”

“No, no, no.” He cooed at her, waving his hands. “That’s nice of you. But this is definitely your thing.” 

“I’m not saying you should take center stage in our premiere. That’s not what I’m asking!”

He laughed in the kind of way that has no humor. “I didn’t realize you were asking something of me, now.”

“No! I didn’t—no, nothing!” She faltered and looked over at the door, half-imagining him taking his leave and wondering if she herself should suggest it before he grew even more uncomfortable. The girl opened her mouth to do so and closed it when she saw how far he had wilted down beneath his jacket. Solen was laughing a little more sincerely now, but he still had shrunk so far into his body that she wondered if swallowing him whole was the only thing he could imagine his own skin could do for him. 

Besides, if he had come in to comfort her and ease her and trick into confessing her troubles and opening up like all the others had done without being invited, it only was fair that he would have to do a little work for it.

“Yes.” Olivia stood again after a moment, and she ignored that her act of standing up made him tense so much that it practically undid the effects of her dance. “I’m asking you to dance with me. Please.”

“I don’t think-“

“Oh, please do, Solen! I just want you to try. You wouldn’t dance with me the other night, either.”

“I did not drink enough.” He seemed to hope his joking would prove infectious and that she would laugh and sit back down and go back to sharing stories that he could simply listen to. She shook her head. 

“Why would you want to drink to do it? That would make someone even clumsier, if they were worried about that.”

“Virion was a bit merry and he struck me as taking decent care of you in that regard.” 

“Virion is a wonderful partner. But I wanted to dance with you.” She reached for his hand and stalled herself halfway down. “No one is watching now! And what I did with him was a Rosanne noble thing. He taught me it, which is why he knew how to jump in like that and lead me all around the mess hall. I’ll show you something Feroxi so we don’t have to dance close together like that. It’ll be easy.”

Solen hesitated more, all of his excuses visibly getting caught in the space in his chest he had so collapsed into himself. He looked up at her and did not protest in time to keep his fate from getting sealed, she determined. She took his hand and decided not to care whether he’d like that or not. 

“It took me so long to learn that dance Virion showed me. I was so scared to touch him! And I was even more scared of having him watch me. Whenever he did, I’d get all tight like you’re getting right now. I made him dance the steps all the way on the other side of the room so he couldn’t look at me fumble all over myself.” When he broke down and smiled at this thought, she could tell he knew he wasn’t getting out of her demand and she wrapped her fingers tighter in his. “It was foolish. And it wasn’t helping me learn, which would mean I could never use that dance. So one evening, I simply made him make me dance with him, both of us at once, in the center of the room. I only stepped on his feet a few times and he was terribly kind about it. And I got so much better really quickly. I thought it looked nice the other night, didn’t you?”

His long-winded sigh was a little uncalled for, she imagined, but when the tactician finally got to his feet she squealed and squeezed his hand. He squeezed back and shook his head. “I think you’re braver than you imagine yourself, Olivia.”

“Oh, gosh, no.” She let go of him and clapped her hands when he gingerly stepped away from the cot. “I just love dancing more than I am frightened of most things. We’ll start with something simple, something in a nice standard time-“

“I don’t have a musical bone in my body.”

She pulled him further away from the beds and closer to the entrance of the tent, where there was more space to move. “That’s okay! You don’t hear any music when we fight, do you? Feroxi dancing could be learned to music, and it works best with drums because then you can really drum up more energy, so to speak – but those are all luxuries. Carrying around a drummer boy in a war is a little impractical if he’s just following around the dancers and not signaling the soldiers. So you just remember what the rhythm sounds like right here.“ 

The girl reached for his temple, landed a quick touch, and escaped before he could reach up and pull her away. She then raced him to his chest – this time, she did not dodge before he caught her and moved his own fingers in besides hers, trying in vain to determine what she was feeling for. “And you carry what the rhythm feels like right there. It’s very convenient, because it can beat that to the rest of your body through your blood. That’s what one of my tutors said, anyway.”

She grabbed two of his fingers before she left where she lingered and led his hand back down to his side. “Oh, take your jacket off. And your shoes. They’ll just weigh you down.”

At this, Solen balked, although not unexpectedly. “I’m not sure that’s necessary.”

“If you wanted to look all oafish, sure. But I think you should feel a little more free.” Like she hadn’t offered him any choice, Olivia undid the strap of his coat and started to slip it off his shoulders, giggling only a little as he panicked to catch it and finish the removal himself. She pulled her own slippers off as he reluctantly flipped his coat around and tossed it on the cot so that the outside was facing up – when he stepped out of his shoes and nudged them out of the way, she grinned again. 

“I feel like I just took the shell off of a tortoise.” The dancer told him, and he grimaced. 

“I’m not sure why you thought a tortoise could dance with or without it in the first place.”

“Well, we’ll see.” She nodded and straightened out his shirt and stepped back, studying him as he flinched. “Now, most Feroxi movements for men are strong and hard. The dance tends to favor a wide stance, but it’s especially true for male dancers. The ones I’ve met are all very tough and confident and masculine, very warrior-like and-no, no, don’t sit back down!” 

He scampered back to the cot just before she could get to him and she yanked him back up with all her strength, fussing furiously as he laughed and laughed and let her drag him back to his feet and stumble him back towards the door. “You’re warrior enough! You don’t have to be a berserker to be manly. Stop laughing at me, I mean it! If you’re so picky, I’ll just teach you the woman’s style if you’d rather.” 

“I’m not sure I’m manly enough for the Feroxi women, either.”

“Let’s just keep it unisex. Stand a little wider and raise your arm up.” She rolled her eyes at him and looked him over again, frowning at the way he tensed up even when he was teasing her. Blinking a few times, he shuffled his feet slightly away from each other and raised up his right hand to his eye level. His shoulders sloped down and he was still hunched into himself as if he were cold even in the snug tent. 

“Why do you want to look like the type of man who can’t even stand on his own? Wouldn’t you rather feel like you do in battle? I think that man’s kind of handsome, really.” Before he could respond to that and she blushed too hard, she fretted over his shoulders and carefully tugged on his arm to prod it up and over his head. With some effort, Olivia carefully bent his elbow out until his arm was angled like the wide side of a diamond.  “Show me him. Stand taller! It’ll look better, I promise.” 

She flicked him gently when he resisted and Solen smiled, but he hung his head aside at this so she couldn’t see him flush - not even he, however, could stop the blotching that ran down his neck. When he tensed up so tightly that he made his perfectly crooked arm run as straight as a pole lance, the dancer knit her brows and started slouching herself. “Is this really more frightening than a pack of Risen? Is it me? Am I making you nervous? I’m so sorry.” 

“No! Hardly. I wouldn’t have anyone else. It’s just a little hard to switch mindsets.” He admitted. He wasn’t laughing anymore. 

Olivia slipped under his arm and positioned herself behind him. She reached for his shoulder and the muscles and tendons that were as tight and hard as tree trunks and started to rub them until they didn’t feel so tight all the way down. He breathed through his nose and she could feel the entirety torso rise and fall with each exhalation. Now that he was not masked by the coat, she could see the exact shapes in his body when they lightly heaved under her. She wouldn’t have expected it, but his back was broad and his waist was short and thick in the kind of way that made him look sturdy. He had the kind of figure that had nooks to cling to and curl to and hold on to - a good support dancer’s stature, with the kind of heaviness and support that could pick a girl like her up and ensure she never, ever fell. 

“Close your eyes, then.” Frowning, she reached out from behind him and tapped on his chin and jaw until he raised it back up to her satisfaction. “When I was little, I was too loose all the time. I flopped around like my arms and legs were sacks of jam. So I had to close my eyes and think of the one thing I would have to defend – I started learning how to fight before I learned how to dance, actually, that’s sort of how my family saw things…”

“That’s bizarre.” As he spoke, he started to crook his elbow again.

“That’s Regna Ferox. I didn’t mind it. They really told us to take a fighting stance when we danced first, that’s not my original idea. It made me stand strong enough when I was a spastic starfish otherwise to think about how I’d have to stand if I was about to fight. So I think it’ll keep you loose enough again if I can get you into it.” Olivia peeked over his shoulder and smiled to herself when she saw his eyes were in fact still closed. “Just think of something that would make you jump right into a fighting stance no matter how shy or awkward you felt. What would you defend no matter what?” 

Under her stroking, she felt his shoulders ease up again, and she immediately went to readjust his upper back into position. Olivia took ahold of his upper arm for him, allowing her fingers to nestle into the cotton of his shirt as he started to tremble and waver. He was taller than her, but not by too much, and she reached up and crooking it back out almost to where it was before, this time adjusting it subtly so it was less geometric and more like a tree branch. He shivered when she trailed her fingers all the way back down her arm and chided him when he moved, but did not resist as she artfully repositioned him the way she might mold a statue.

“Better?” He asked as she flexed him carefully, and she nodded even though he could not see her. 

“Much. What did you think of?” 

“Chrom and all of the army and everyone. It’s my job, after all.”

She let his arm stand on its own and backed away from it to admire her handiwork. “Yes, I used to lie about that too. I told my mother I was thinking about her and my father when she asked what I had chosen. But I was thinking about the dance scarf my grandmother gave me.”

Before he could get defensive enough to break his progress, she grabbed and held the hand on his lowered arm. “Don’t worry. I won’t make you tell. Spread your stance like there’s eleven brigands about, you’re down two men and you’re trying to hold your ground.” 

As he made himself get wider, she slipped back to the front of him and beamed. 

“You’re standing on an angle. No, that’s good! You can open your eyes now.” 

She always forgot he had green eyes, even if they were the hazeled, muddied kind. With his hair, they popped half off his face even as he squinted hesitantly at her, waiting silently for more orders. 

“That’s really good. I like you like this, you know. You always seem so stiff in camp unless someone has you really excited. It’s like you really are more frightened of us than the risen.”

“I trust all of you enough to be as nervous as I am. I wouldn’t lock up so much if I thought I was going to have to attack someone.”

Olivia took his dangling arm and raised it up in front of him, carefully arcing it out and away from his chest. “People are scary, I suppose. I wish you wouldn’t be so scared of me. I’m harmless and little. I think you could break me in half like most the camp can, if you wanted! You’re so strong that I don’t think anyone could truly hurt you, really.”

“I don’t think anyone’s going to harm me, at least not with Chrom around. It’s not that.” 

“Then what?”

“Olivia, I think my arm’s going to fall right off if I keep it up like this for much longer.”

“Right! Right! Sorry! I forgot!” She let go of his arched lower arm and stepped away. “Hold that, if you don’t mind.”

Solen didn’t say anything, but he did as she said, scrunching his face up as he tried to keep both arms in position without them weighing down too painfully. 

“I’ll show you what to do now– watch me!” The moment she felt his eyes follow her, she reddened again, but she bit down on her resolve and emulated his position, crooking her arm daintily over her head and bringing the lower arm in an arc out with her palm facing him. “Here, see, you bend your knees and plant your footing this, and you go into it almost like a pirouette – you don’t know what that means, I’m so sorry-“

Solen brightened even as he toppled a bit. “I do, actually! I did figure that one out when I was reading the theatre book. You need a special kind of stage to make it easier on your feet, don’t you?” 

“You’re perfect. See? You’ll be teaching me soon.” She grinned at him. “I won't be spinning you. The arm motion is somewhat similar, except that you don’t spin very much because you ground yourself instead, and you bring your whole arm out much slower. See?” She did it slower than she had to, trying to emphasize the grace behind the motion. “Try it.” 

He whirled his curved arm out as if he was shoving something large and heavy out of the way and dropped it by his side. She shook her head. 

“Try it with more discipline. Focus.”

Undeterred, he made his arm as straight as a board and swung it in front of him. 

“I see. Now cast Arcthunder.”

The tactician dropped the stance entirely and stared at her. “What? Right now?”

“Yes! Except maybe without the tome.” 

He went back to tugging at his hair and tucking himself downwards. “For what reason, then?”

“Just for pretend. Dancing is theatrical, it’s storytelling. So you’re going to have to act.” Looking around, she jogged over to Cherche’s lonesome shelf and grabbed for a single book in a language she couldn’t read, dusting off the cover as carefully as she could manage. “Here. Hold this and summon some lightening for me. You always look a bit like a conductor when you do thunder magic. Is that true?” 

He thumbed through the book, raising his eyebrows at a few of the illustrations. “True enough, I guess. The positioning calls the lightning that the tome generates into your body, and the movements let it back out where you target it to go.”

The dancer nodded. “So I guess you must be very precise. That sounds difficult.”

“It’s hard for some. You have to move quickly and smoothly enough so that you don’t fizzle it out or get it caught inside you, which is far worse, but you have to be very exact. I think it’s almost like archery. There’s a lot of grace involved, but you have to really narrow down exactly where your body can direct something, and if you’re off by too much the consequences are a little stressfully dire…”

“But you prefer this.”

“It makes sense to me.” He shrugged and closed the book with one hand. “It’s difficult but deducible. Wind is something else altogether when it comes from all directions, and it’s near impossible to control if you’re so…”

“Uptight?” Olivia smirked at him, but drew back when he frowned instead. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean that.”

“I like to consider it focused. Or tense, maybe, I guess. Fire magic is easier to control if harder to contain, but it comes from a place inside of you that I really don’t have. I’ll never be truly good.”

She took his hand again and tucked the book into his arm. “You don’t have passion?”

The girl did not like that she made him wilt again. “I run a little cold.” 

“I see.” She pursed her lips and stepped back. “Go on, then. Show me, please!”

He stared down at the book and took a step back, clearly struggling to gain his balance without the coat. For a second, he stared back at it longingly, but he straightened out his shoulders, flipped open the makeshift tome, eyed something behind her, and struck. 

Nothing happened. Even though he was standing so perfectly and had gone into the attack with the expertise of a man whose body remembered a lot more than his brain, there was no crackle or burst or shock. Even so, Olivia looked at the palm from which the lightning would have burst, and pointed to a tired spot on the wall where the tent had begun to snag. “You were aiming for here.”

“Yes.” He lowered his arm and looked impressed. 

“Would you have landed it?”

“I hope so.”

She shook her head and fingered the tear. “Convince me?”

“It would have landed.” 

“Do it again if you don’t mind.” 

Shrugging, he went into another attack, emulating the first quiver for quiver and breath for breath. She clapped for him. 

“Now do it and follow your arm through all the way – make the farthest point of your arc where you would have stopped to aim, but bring it around and don’t drop it.”

Solen tightened his lips and examined her so suddenly that she took another step back, but he nodded with a newfound determination and did as she instructed. He blushed when she burst into delighted cries and snatched the book out of his arm.

“Now stick your arm back up and do that again.” Olivia positioned his arm much more quickly this time and stepped back, clutching the hardcover to her chest as tried the step once more, keeping his raised arm in place. “Bend that elbow just a teeny little bit! Slow the motion down and be really, really deliberate.”

Despite himself, she could tell, a small smirk was starting to form on his face as he brought his arm out again, this time much more carefully if no more smoothly.

“Knees! Ground yourself – there. When you step, pop the knee opposite of the arm you have raised forward a little – more, more, yes! Look at me – well maybe don’t look at me, look at that spot on the wall – but stop looking at your feet. They know what they’re doing. You’re doing so well.” 

After the last round he looked up at her and cringed, and she merely burst into even more applause, accompanied by a tiny squeal. “How do you feel?”

“Kind of ridiculous. Extremely ridiculous, actually.” He broke his stance again and she shook her head, rushing to join him by his side. 

“You could look much more stupid, believe me. Try it again, but count with me. You’re going to count to four, but not like you’re just counting coins or something – deliberately, like a drum. On four, you should be all the way over, and don’t start until one.” Olivia got in line next to him and flushed when he brought his arm perfectly to position without her guidance. “Oh, you’re so good at remembering these things.” 

“I try.”

“Hang in there. Ready?” When the dancer counted, she emphasized each word so neatly and firmly that she wondered if he could believe that it was her speaking – she wondered if anyone in the camp had heard her speak so sincerely and severely about anything before. She eyed him as he followed her uneasily, his conviction waffling as he tried too hard to match the numbers with her positioning. It was too much to hope his faith in her wasn’t also wavering, but she simply couldn’t give up on him now! Olivia tugged on his sleeve. 

“Don’t look at me, okay? Close your eyes if you have to. Just feel things out with all that blood I told you about!”

He perfected it on the second try and she resisted the urge to throw her arms around him. It took enough effort to make herself not laugh in her joy, for fear he would take it entirely the wrong way, and she settled for nodding even more vigorously. “Could you try it in the other direction? Raise your left hand this time.”

Solen opened his eyes and shook his head back and forward at her so fast that it was as if he thought maybe she’d let him off the hook just to save him from wrenching his skull off his neck. She said nothing and he sighed and turned to nodding when she peered at him as sweetly as she could manage. 

“When you hear me say one, that’s where all the power comes from. This step only has one point to draw in the energy, but it’s a strong one, and it’s grounded so it works well. I’m going to count all the way to eight this time. I’m going to switch back the other way on five – you just do that by picking your leg up on four, so you can bring it down. Like a pivot but you pick it up – do you know what that is, too?”

He nodded more honestly this time and she grabbed his hand and laughed. “I can’t believe you looked all of this up.”

His arm was beginning to feel familiar from the amount of times she had gone for it, and he had not pulled it away from her yet. 

“It’s important to know these things. If I’m planning something, I’d like to know what I’m talking about.” The tactician started to bring both his arms down, but when she looked up at him he raised the left one back up. “Okay, okay. A pivot, then?”

“Similar. But don’t move so far and bring up your leg and step down when you turn – I’ll just show you, I don’t want you to lose what you’ve remembered with my stalling.” Olivia scampered back into position. “Ready?”

“Sure.”

“Convince me.”

“Completely ready.” Solen grinned at her and she melted. 

“O-one.” She whispered back at him, and he craned his neck to hear her. “I mean, one! Try to feel that with all of you. One, two, three, and!” 

On the first round, he awkwardly mimed the motions with her, coming in late and lifting up early and jumping back into step when he saw the depth of his delay. He finished a step after her eight, and before he could quit she started counting again, and louder. 

On the second round, he hesitated less, even though she could see he was staring down at her feet and looking back to his own to try to figure out what exactly she was doing. Olivia let him study her a few counts, making sure her movements were as precise as she had described and identical to each other every time – she found very quickly that the more she thought about this, the more impossible it became. “Five, six, don’t look at me, eight! One!”

“But I want to look at you.” He said over her counts, still peering over at her movements as he continued to try to follow the new step. “You look great doing this.”

Olivia nearly stopped counting when she looked up at him, and he stopped looking at her feet in turn and stared right back. Her loud numbers evaporated into tiny murmurs, and she felt as her face went hot again only to make his skin grow red all the way back down his neck again, and she went hotter and he went redder and this time, their arms were too preoccupied to hide their faces. 

She breathed out something that was once meant to be a five. He looked at her as if it eased his eyes to see her – six - , as if staring at the tear on the wall wasn’t nearly so soothing – seven -, as if there was nothing else in the room he could bear to see. On eight, she tore away from him and looked straight ahead, nodding to herself as she raised her leg to turn and brought it back down hard. 

On one, she felt her stomach resonate with a sudden multiplication of the warm energy she had been harnessing. She looked over as she felt the power split north to her lungs and south to her hips and realized that he had finally landed his step on the beat with her, his positioning just right. 

“Solen!” She gasped at him and squealed towards him and yet above all, she kept moving as to not derail him he best she could. She was shaken, but she would never forgive herself if that stopped him. “Three! Four!” 

The ground itself was so charged despite the quiet and the calm that when she came down again on four, she could feel everything that had left him race right up her legs and through her pelvis and into her stomach. When she moved her arm out, she could feel it rush up across her chest cavity and drain down into the muscles in her limbs before it could escape out the tips of her fingers. She nearly grabbed to get it back. 

It was impossible not to close her eyes. When she stepped down, her ones and fives came out as a squeak and she focused on sending everything she had down and into his feet to keep from being so entirely consumed by the types of surges and ripples he was giving her. She wondered what it was like to be him, with a body that was twice hers but still not too thick or burly to wrap one’s self around, and with legs and arms that were far more reliable than her own. Solen was stronger, sturdier, more vigorous and more robust, and yet if he was anything like her, he was feeling these shockwaves rip and billow through his sinew. The little aftershocks would toy and tease at his thighs and hips and everything up and down and in between while the real power would gather in his stomach so thick and ever expanding that if he didn’t share it back, he would surely burst.

“Make sure you follow through with your arm. Get it all out, bring all your energy there and let it go.” Olivia instructed him quickly, suppressing another gasp when a downbeat came. “You’re doing so good. You’re perfect! Solen—“

And suddenly, there was nothing but cold floor and chilly air around her. 

The dancer opened her eyes and whipped around, stumbling over her feet as she remembered what gravity and powerlessness felt like. Her companion was no longer moving, but had rather stepped entirely out of line and was standing dangerously close to the cot. He had wrapped his arms around himself and tightened his upper back down again, and while he smiled at her when she caught his eye, he did so so sheepishly she would have preferred him to simply look upset. 

“Solen! You were doing so well! You were getting really into it and it was amazing!” Olivia rushed over to him. “What’s wrong? You’re a natural, if you let yourself be!” 

She took his hand from his chest and breathed in as something even more intense sparked between their fingers. This was less spiritual and more like static shock without the snap, and it went through her like tiny lightning and exited through her toes before she could even register it. He shuddered at the exchange, but she did not let go of him. 

“I do not think this is my thing.” He said kindly, finally, and he carefully flexed his shoulder as if he were frightened it would simply sting him again. The girl shook her head and bit down on her lip. 

“No! You were just getting it. Gosh, that must have felt intense, didn’t it? You’re a magic user, of course you couldn’t just expect to do the steps and not accidentally draw anything else in. I should have thought of that and warned you. I’m so sorry, Solen, but you were incredible!”

The man blushed, but shook his head. “I think I just appreciate you more, now, if that’s what it feels like the whole time.”

“It feels so extreme like that with more than one person. It’s been so long that I’d forgotten just how much. But it feels so good, though, once you’re used to it! That’s not even the magic, Solen, that’s just letting your entire body go. Any kind of dance gives you that when you do it right. Try it once more with me.”

“I’m certain this is all best left up to you.” He admitted, and she took his other hand, then his wrist, and without warning she found herself slipping in between his arms and wrapping herself around his waist. He did not spurn her, but she could feel all of him go strained again. 

“Why do you hate your body so much?” She asked him, and when he tensed further she squeezed more to match. “This tightness isn’t so comfortable. You felt so good when you let go, didn’t you? I’m shy too, you know, and even I let myself have this!”

The man breathed and said nothing, focusing more on where to put his hands than how to reply. She went on. 

“You seemed so happy just a moment ago. What has your body ever done to you so that it doesn’t deserve to feel so wonderful? Hasn’t it gone and summoned lots of things for you, and taken you so many places and resisted breaking down when we march everywhere?” She grimaced suddenly. “Or maybe it’s me. Maybe I don’t make you feel good at all when I dance with you. Oh, gosh, I should have never tried.”

Solen tried to shake off his unsteadiness, chuckling down at her in a way that sounded a little too forced. “My body suits me just fine. This was fun, Olivia, I mean it. You’re a wonderful teacher. I just think I’ve had enough for one day.”

She loosened her grip on him and felt her heart begin to pound when she realized that to fully pull away, she would have to purposely push away his arms that had draped onto her and did not yield to let her go. It was so simple to stay there and value and memorize the weight his limbs had on her while he recomposed himself, and when he did finally release her, she did not want to leave. 

“We can stop for today. But I think you should learn this.” When she looked up at him, it was with swiftly found determination. “I just wanted you to try before, but I really think you could use it. Even just theoretically, for all those strategies you make up! If you want to use me more, you ought to learn more about what I do, shouldn’t you?”

He looked down at her doubtfully and she pressed on. “I’ll teach you if you’d like. It can just be the two of us. I don’t mind spending time with you do this – unless you don’t want to spend time with me! I suppose you’re already doing so much for me and you’re very busy and all.”

The tactician looked quite unsettled at this thought and cut her off before she could continue too far in this vein. “I'm always happy to spend as much time as you’d like with you. Just maybe not doing this.” 

Olivia squeezed his wrists again. “It’s so useful! I promise it’ll be useful to you. You know, my brothers thought I was wasting my time with how much I was dancing around, but I showed them. I’m a dancer, but that’s not all I am. When you have such a good sense of rhythm, it makes you better in combat.”

She stepped back and brandished an imaginary sword, smiling when he appeared amused by the spectacle. “Look. Pretend you’re a talentless brigand. I come at you with a similar rhythm to all my swipes – one, two, three, four.” On each count, she jabbed at him with the invisible blade. “You’d get used to that quickly! But then I might do this – one, two, three and four!” 

When she attacked again the new, faster count, Solen stepped back and she beamed. “Hah! You didn’t see that coming! And I could do it again, but maybe I wouldn’t attack on three and come in later – then you’d be really confused! But I could always keep myself on time. It’s very practical, and your footwork gets better too.”

He looked at her and finally let his shoulders begin to soften. “That’s pretty damn clever.”

“It is! And it surprises even the best swordsmen. There’s lots of dancers who are far better fighters than I am, though, and I’m sure they integrate it a whole lot more seamlessly. But it’s what I could show you, if I’m going to be of any use to you at all. When I fight, that’s how I fight. You should know that.”

“You know, if you’re going to start questioning why I hate my body, I’m going to start asking you why you hate yourself so much.” The man raised an eyebrow at her. “You’re a valued fighter, too.”

Olivia started to feel her own shoulders sloping in and she forced herself to relax them to little avail. “I can do in a pinch, I guess. And I’d do anything for you that I can! I can just get a little troubled when I’m feeling so wonderful from my dances and suddenly, I have to turn around and kill something with the same exact moves, but!”

When she looked up at him, she covered her hand with her mouth and nearly grew sick at his sudden look of satisfaction. In her excitement, and in the passion from the dancing and the laughter and the lessons, she had forgot that he had originally sought out to be the one comforting her. 

“Ah.” Solen said, nodding at her as she flushed. “Troubled enough to go back to camp and hide out in your tent from your worried friends, perhaps?”

She looked down and cringed. “You weren’t supposed to hear that.” 

This time, he was the one taking her hand and sitting her down on the cot. She gingerly obliged and inched away from him, looking away as she sorted out her words and wished they came as easily to her as her movements. In the meanwhile, she watched him reach back for his jacket and slip himself inside, taking great pains to ensure she never saw the inside. 

As she quietly questioned his movements, the tactician chimed back in before she could explain herself, and his tone was just as apologetic. 

“You weren’t supposed to have to go on the offensive, today, Olivia, I never intended for it, I swear on every god. It was my fault that I didn’t send enough people with you. I should have realized Frederick’s still getting used to his wyvern and isn’t as quick as he usually is, and I should have considered more might have been coming in from the woods.”

“We were ambushed! You had to make that whole plan on the spot and it was such a good one. No one even got hurt out of all of us.” When he looked unconvinced, she shook her head. “It’s got nothing to do with you or Frederick or anyone else. I’m a soldier now, Solen. I carry a blade for a reason.”

“You carry your blade for defense.” He reached out and carefully lifted up her chin so she would look at him. “I don’t consider your contract with us as one that obliges you to make a murderer of yourself. We’ve got plenty of people who’ve bought into that enough to spare you.”

She half wished he’d go back to being the one cowering. “They were just Risen! So it’s not really killing or murdering. It’s just that, er, when they get mortally wounded – immortally wounded, er – when they’re defeated, they fall just like they were human.”

Solen let her sit silent for a minute, but when she closed her eyes and could see nothing else but a greying body collapsing to the ground, she jolted backwards and sought out more conversation. “And it’s just so...so strange to me! I practiced these steps as a little girl. I’ve known how to move like that for longer than I’ve known how to write. And I did hours of practice daily with the hopes that I would make someone smile someday. If I’m, well, lopping the smile off someone’s face instead, it feels so traitorous to that girl.”

When he squeezed her knee, she squirmed and looked back at him in abject terror. “Don’t dismiss me from the army for being so weak as this. Please. I’d never live up to it. There’s no where else I’d rather be but here and I have no where else to go.” 

“You’re not going anywhere, I swear.”

“But don’t take me off the front lines if that’s where you want me.” This time, Olivia turned to stare straight at him and willed herself not to get distracted by the way he looked back. “I’d kill a hundred risen for you. I’d kill a hundred men for you. A thousand of each!” 

Even with all her determination, he didn’t miss a beat. “And I’d kill a thousand of each personally so you didn’t have to, every time. But I can spare myself that by just planning more responsibly when I can.”

The heat returned to her face. “I’m not special. Don’t treat me differently than everyone else.”

“You’re as different as every unit. If I acted like you were all the same person, we would have lost the war a long time ago. And we just started, remember?” She recoiled and he leaned forward to get closer to her. He sat silently for a moment, furrowing her brow as he studied her frame the same exact way she had done to him when his eyes were closed. The dancer crossed her arms and shrunk downwards, but he tapped his chin and nodded. 

“I want you to teach me more dancing. Maybe not quite so hands on as today, but I do want to see everything you do.” He raised an eyebrow. “And not just because you’re so nice to watch, either.”

She raised both eyebrows to counter him and covered her mouth. “O-oh! Really? Why?”

He kept looking her over, his eyes picking up on even her subtlest movements and gestures as she sat and continued to fluster. “Because I think I can use what you were talking about. But I want to see if I can use that confusion from the rhythms to help you parry. I don’t really care for fields of corpses myself, really. I bet there must be some way that you can use all of that to help you  _ not _ kill. Disarming’s not so effective with the Risen, maybe, but it can sometimes put a stop to brigands and soldiers just as good as death can. Especially if you’ve already puzzled them out of their wits.” 

“But you’re so busy already! I shouldn’t have offered earlier. You don’t have to pretend this is for strategy when you’re really just humoring me.” 

As she fretted over his intentions, the tactician remained still and stared straight at her.

“You’re completely right.” He deadpanned, nodding gravely. “It’s not for strategy. I shouldn’t lie to you. I’m really coming up with excuses to spend more time with you.”

Solen cracked at the same time she did, offering her up a grin just when she couldn’t help but smile.  

“Very seriously, though.” He added, more sincerely, and he rubbed at the skin between her fingers. “I want to give this a try. Both for your company and for what I think you could teach me. I already told you I think you’re a lot braver than you know, didn’t I? And I definitely said that I like to know what I’m talking about when I plan something.”

This time, when she smiled, she wore it so naturally and warmly that she partially felt as if he was seeing something she shouldn’t let him. She didn’t care, and she took his hand into hers even tighter, rubbing it for a trace of any of that spark or energy he had generated so generously for her before. No such thing lingered, but his hands were strong and warm. 

“I want to tell you something, if it’s okay.” Olivia looked up at him, and when he appeared interested she went on. “It’s really sad when I have to hurt anything. But I wouldn’t want to use anything else but my dancing for whatever I have to do.”

She looked down at his wrists even though she could still feel his eyes on her, and went on. “And that’s why I want you to have it for yourself, too. It’s so comforting to think that we could be swarmed and have to spend our last few minutes trying to fend off a bunch of disgusting Risen and I would still have my dancing. Or maybe all of the walls in the world could come collapsing down, and all of our towns could tumble and fall on us, and the whole world could just implode on itself and just before I was crushed I could call on this and feel it in me no matter how little I had left to live. I feel like someone could even take my limbs from me and I would never lose this all the same.”

He studied her as if he were processing what she said, and she faltered off, struggling for more. “As long as I am alive, the way I move will be alive too. So I could be the last girl in the world and I’d never be alone. And I never want you to be alone, either! I don't want anyone to be alone.”

Especially him, she imagined as she looked back up at him. The ones who kept to themselves the most, she had determined, were the ones who ached the most from having no one else around, and she could think of few better candidates who deserved some form of company. 

Solen sat back on the cot and let her run a finger down his, watching his hands instead of her face as she did it. He looked up eventually, eagerly, and he leaned in as if he was nearly embarrassed about what he was going to say. 

“Can I see the rest of the dance?”

She scrunched up her face. “Which one?”

“The one you were going to teach me, but only got about a step into. If you’re feeling better. First I want you to feel better. The dance can come later, no doubt, if ever.”

Immediately, she brightened. “No! It can definitely come now! If you’re so certain you want to see the rest of it, anyway.”

“More than anything, actually.” He confessed, and he grinned and curled himself comfortably into his jacket when she took to her feet. “I don’t think you realize you’re a treat.”

“It’s a treat to have someone watching without having to axe or arrow anything in the meantime.” Olivia giggled, and she tied back her braids and straightened out her shoulders. “Just don’t mind me if I get a little embarrassed.”

“Not at all.”

She beamed at him and nervously began her twirling movement, repeating it several times until she was sure it was smooth as silk. Once she had perfected it, she dove into the circling movement and a series of jumps to catch the extra beats until she could launch into the wild drumming motion over and over again until she could bear no more energy inside of her. When she caught him looking enraptured in between whirls, she flustered and closed her eyes and raised her arm and counted and stomped until she could almost remember what his pulses of power had felt like inside of her. Maybe, maybe if she was conniving and lucky and could leverage that enamored expression of his, she’d find out again. 

She couldn’t do the motion for ever and she found herself in a flurry of motion that she could scarcely even articulate or break down, her ability to string together the moves much more advanced than her capacity to track the process. Olivia was untroubled by this and simply followed the ebb and flow of the space as she let her motions lift her up and lay her down. She did not care that she could feel herself mouthing the words to a song no one could hear as she spun and she did not care that her braids were back in her eyes and she did not care, for once, how she might look – all she cared about, she discovered, was that she could still feel a pair of hazel eyes on her as she danced for all her might. 

  
  
  



End file.
